A Body Of Shadow
by Emma CS Me
Summary: Faith is going to burn herself to the ground. Buffy is going to stand upon her corpse, and smile.


_I exist in a time of legend, of war and chaos. I was not born. I was always there, floating through the air, infecting all, turning the world into a land of weapons. I swarmed, I floated, until I was trapped. Swallowed, swallowed into a child. I was whole, I became death, I became the gift._

_Then, wrapped in agony, I split in two._

* * *

She knows she wants Faith dead from the second she lays eyes upon her.

Faith is wild, Faith slays like it's a dance, a game. Macarena, hide and seek, death. Faith is fire and lightning, she connects to the stake and sets the tree it came from alight. Faith is chaos, Faith is the darkness, Faith is the _slayer._

Buffy _(loves) _hates her, and knows she will be the one to bleed her dry.

Faith isn't like Kendra; stifled and stiff beyond a million rules that twisted her, destroyed her. Kendra connected with nothing, she lived as a pocket of smoke.

Buffy misses that.

Faith starts to lie from the second the _(one) _two slayers meet, and Buffy feels smug. Faith is slowly burning herself to the ground, and Buffy knows she will be the one to stand on the ashes.

* * *

Faith knows Angel. Faith embraces chaos and darkness like friends, lovers, family. She embraces Angel and the darkness in him far better than Buffy ever could, even as she aims that stake towards his heart. This goes beyond a fight, this is a lovers' embrace, a haters' embrace, soulmates that mix and mingle in the dark and no matter how hard she tries, Buffy will never clean them from each other.

She tries to forget.

* * *

Buffy likes living in the dark with Faith; the darkness shows no color. It shows no red _(fury and lust; to touch a monster is a sin) _or yellow _(to swim into the light and set the monsters aflame)._ For the first time since she stood on the steps of Hemery High, she does not feel like she's drowning in blue tears.

She wonders if she will die with Faith, if she has the strength to pull back from the darkness, the dizzying addiction. Every fight when she checks Faith has not burned away _(wishing she would have) _she checks she hasn't too.

Then suddenly, the darkness lets some red in and she sees the world clear. Faith refuses to burst alight, she chooses instead to drown, and Buffy feels dissatisfied – _the slayer_ should die more spectacularly then that.

She knew this moment was coming from the second she lay eyes upon the _(one and only) _second slayer. The moment when she would stand upon Faith's grinning corpse.

Buffy suppresses her smile.

* * *

She's chained to the graveyard, to the ground. She doesn't understand how grains of dirt could hold a chain, no matter how fine, but then she remembers she's thinking in metaphor again.

Angel and Faith bleed before her, two undead corpses buried in a tumble of limbs. They mock her for her breath, her pulse, her blood that flows. They live in hell, vicious violent hell that welcomes them with wide arms. She lives in limbo, quiet cold limbo that rejects her like the rule of heaven, hell and earth.

Faith spits anger and cruelty at her, the ghosts of a life no-one ever had. Buffy takes them on board, she gloats with her pulse, and Faith is all too eager to take it away. Take it away like a vampire's kiss, Faith, Angelus, Angel, Faith, bleeding in and out until it doesn't matter anymore _(it never has)._

Buffy wonders what it would be like, to die.

She and Angel show their plan and Faith laughs with a Judas Kiss. Buffy is left shocked, staring yet again at her _(successive) _fellow slayer's corpse. She feels the wrap of a cold hand around hers _(Faith, Angel, it doesn't matter anyway) _and she cannot suppress her grin.

_

* * *

I divide, I multiply. I take your hand in mine, then I twist your wrist and shatter the bone beneath. I am watching you; I couldn't care less what I see. I float through the air, through your nostrils and mouth, but when we reach your lungs I am nowhere to be seen. I am your goddess, your servant, your betrayer, your messiah._

_I am better than you._

* * *

She feels hollow in the dream. Hollow and purposeless; although she remembers that she has things to do _(729, 728...)_ people to save, a world of her own. Faith looks at her with life, with a mission, and Buffy loves _(hates)_ to see Faith like this, real but not real, dead yet alive.

Living in limbo, like her.

Faith sends messages, like a peace offering – it can't be, because they both know it's too late for that _(redemption is a rare and special thing) _and if Faith awakened, things would be the exact same, but with a hole in _(the wrong) _one of them.

She holds Faith's hand at the hospital, it feels warm and soft. Faith looks alive for the first time, and Buffy tries not to care. She returns the Judas Kiss, and laughs a little on the inside.

She won.

* * *

This wasn't meant to happen, Faith wasn't meant to _(die) _awaken.

Now she searches the streets, looking for her _(purpose) (shadow) (the only) _slayer. Faith spread fire wherever she went, the girl lived in hell and just kept forgetting to stay there.

Faith takes her mother _(her life) (her blood) _with a sharp shiny knife, determined to drag them all to hell. Buffy won't let her – they fight tooth and claw, animals in the hunt for survival _(the proud wolf stands above its prey), _then Faith digs her nails into Buffy's wrist, and opens the gate to hell.

* * *

When Buffy hears Faith is after Angel, she isn't worried or angered. She's relieved – Faith has taken everything she could get her hands on, like she has right to it, as _(the)_ another slayer. Buffy is glad that Angel is in danger, so she can go to LA _(city of lost souls, where better?) _and finish it. Faith is another demon, a demon the _(not anymore) _slayer must take care of. It is her duty, her mission, and Faith, corpse upon a mountain of flames, could _(alwlays)_ never understand that.

She takes Mr. Pointy _(fire extinguished under rules and regulations; Buffy liked that) _to LA with her, for luck more than anything. As she runs a finger over the point, and she doesn't feel at all guilty about the one word ringing in her head.

_Slay._

_

* * *

I am the darkness; the pain. I am what the monsters hide under the bed from, and I am proud of my skill. I live in the flames, I welcome the burn. I am dead, yet I live a million times over. I have burned my way through every single girl, I have lived in all of them and none of them. I am destruction, absolute, alone. I live in hundreds upon thousands of bodies._

_But not in hers, anymore._


End file.
